Even if you regularly plan themes and fingerplays for storytime, the inevitable happens. A coworker calls in sick and you need to cover her/his storytime. A preschool group calls Friday afternoon and would like to visit the library on Monday as part of its “community helpers” week. Or, despite the best intentions, you fail to plan a theme for the first storytime following an extended holiday vacation….and despite your best efforts, can’t muster up enthusiasm for a farm or puppies and kitten storytime.
Theme enthusiasts! I know who you are, because I am one of you. You want every story and every fingerplay to flow seamlessly from one energetic reading to another. Does the thought of a theme-less storytime make you want to burrow underneath your collection of Folkmanis puppets?
(Storytime) Nation, when a themeless storytime stares you in the face, stare right back at it (it can smell fear). Think of five read aloud picture books and hope that they are on the shelves. I predict that you’ll think of the most imaginative, best illustrated, and best written picture books. Or think of five picture book authors. You’ll conjure up the brightest talents in the field. I also predict that you’ll think of stories that quite a few of your storytime attendees have heard several times. Don’t worry-they’ll tell you.
“I know that one!” Isn’t that wonderful? Aren’t those great words? Those words, or something akin to it, brightens my morning ten-fold when I hear it. This is a child who has fallen in love with a book so much that he/she has requested repeated readings of it.
“That’s awesome! It’s a great story. It’ll be fun to listen to it again. But some of us haven’t heard the story yet. Let’s not tell them what happens. It’ll be a surprise!”
Yes, children often love to hear the same story many times. However, it’s usually their mother or father who read the same story. Hearing the story from a new reader is a different experience; a new reader presents the story in a different way with inflection and facial expressions.
Somewhere in the sky between Louis Armstrong International Airport (New Orleans) and Dulles International Airport (serving Washington DC and northern VA), I remembered that quite a few children and parents would expect storytime come Wednesday morning. Knowing that I had not practiced my fingerplays and songs for that week’s storytime, I knew I would have to use a fall-back plan. Either recycle a theme or do a free-for-all storytime. Anticipating that I would face a week’s load of email, snail mail, and New Year’s wishes and Christmas discussions with colleagues in the morning, I knew that I could only give a half-hearted run-through of recycled fingerplays. Since I only use “cheat sheets” for fingerplays when absolutely necessary, I went for the free-for-all. I went searching for the first five picture book authors that came to mind (Denise Fleming, Eric Carle, Mo Willems, Nancy Tafuri, and Jules Feiffer). I thought of the most popular songs and fingerplays that we’ve done for the past few months (“Wheels on the Bus,” “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” and a trifecta of circle songs-“Ring Around the Rosie” and “Pop Goes the Weasel” followed by our standard closing, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.”)
Did anyone complain about not having a theme? Absolutely not! Parents don’t bring their children to storytime because of the theme. This was one of our best storytimes yet; even the ones who have been the shyest about participating joined in when we did our familiar songs. Every book held the children’s attention. The children loved the stories and songs, the parents sang along to the songs, and I was thrilled. A perfect storytime, and no rhyme and reason for it.
Will I abandon themed storytimes for good? No; frankly, it’s easier for me to pull together stories and fingerplays/action rhymes when I have a theme planned. But every so often, that doesn’t happen. When it does, it’s not something that causes stress.
What would be your “go to” books or authors?
Happy New Year, everyone!